


Breathe

by collegefangirl3791



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Romanoff Saved, POV Steve Rogers, Soul Stone (Marvel), so I gave them one, they deserved a happy ending, this is canon don't fite me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 19:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collegefangirl3791/pseuds/collegefangirl3791
Summary: Steve Rogers returns the soul stone to Vormir. There's a rule, though. A soul for a soul. So he gets someone in return.





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I loved Avengers Endgame. I also need Romanogers and a happy ending for Steve and Natasha RIGHT NOW. Expect so much fix-it fic, I need my kids to be happier than they were and ngl I reject Steve's canonical ending.
> 
> With that out of the way, enjoy some crappy fluff and fix-it and leave comments if you like it. You can find me on tumblr at collegefangirl3791 and if you have good Romanogers/Steve prompts please fling them at me, I need to write my sadness away today.

Steve wasn’t sure what he expected from Vormir. Frankly, he was never sure what he expected, anymore, and he’d given up trying to predict anything. It was good, having something to do. And frankly, it was good to do it alone. Everything had felt like too much, after. Between Tony and Nat  _ (hell, _ Nat) being gone, and all the logistics of repairing what had been lost and then restored - he needed to get away.

But when he landed on Vormir, he briefly wished he’d let someone else run this mission. Everything he saw was dark and rocky, twisted crags of stone that led nowhere, and he thought maybe he should just let this stone stay lost. It had taken two people from his life and the lives and his friends - it was too dangerous. But Steve, as ever, also knew his responsibility, and so after a dubious look around, he followed what seemed to be the logical path: a set of chipped stairs twisting up a mountain.

His chest felt so tight. He didn’t think he’d had a real deep breath since before Thanos took everything.

There was no sound here, seemingly no life, just the wind moaning through the rocks and Steve’s own quiet footsteps. He didn’t like the quiet. It was too easy to think.

He wondered if he’d find Nat’s body here. He didn’t know if he could take it, if he did. He was so tired, tired of fighting and tired of losing so much even when they won. Clint had told him that Nat made her choice, and hell, he was  _ proud  _ of her. Proud. And hurting like he had so many times before.

“Time to figure out what makes you happy,” Sam had told him, before he left. “After this, I think we all need a break. Maybe you should try being a track coach for highschoolers.”

“That doesn’t sound like my speed, Sam.”

“No, I guess an Olympic sprinting coach is more like it.”

Steve just wanted peace. He needed it. Maybe he’d never get there, really, but he had to try.

Something snapped him out of his thoughts, abruptly, and put him on high alert. A movement, a hush of sound, something, but he stopped in his tracks and hefted Thor’s hammer and the half of his shield that remained, eyes darting around, scanning. He shifted a little, and a flutter caught the corner of his eye again and he whipped around, settling his feet in a firm ready stance.

His first though was  _ oh my God, it’s a dementor. _ Like in Harry Potter. He knew Natasha would’ve thought of the exact same thing, which stung a little when it occurred to him.

“Steve Rogers, son of Sarah.”

His  _ second _ thought, on hearing the voice, was  _ oh hell no. _ He tightened his grip on the hammer and gritted his teeth, getting ready to fight, but the  _ thing  _ that sounded like Johann Schmidt pushed it’s hood back to reveal the hollow-cheeked red face that had been part of Steve’s worst nightmares for almost ten years.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” he said, dryly, “but you got uglier.”

Red Skull just looked at him, dispassionate. “You brought back the stone,” he said, and Steve nodded tersely.

“Do I need to fight you for it?” he asked, flat, although from the look of things, this Red Skull wasn’t the same one that had disappeared from the Valkyrie in 1945.  Not much of a threat. Unless he really was like a dementor now.

“There is no need for that. You are here to return it?”

“Yeah.” Steve started to edge past Red Skull, tense, but the spectre just went with him, silent and disquieting.

“I will show you what to do with it,” he said, and so, because Steve wasn’t going to waste time arguing with a dementor version of his oldest enemy, he just followed him up another set of stairs till they were on a cliff, staring at dark skies and a landscape too craggy and broken for anything to grow. Steve’s heart was racing with anxiety and adrenaline. He almost asked,  _ is this where she died? _ But he couldn’t.

“The stone belongs here,” Red Skull said, gesturing at the edge of the cliff. “A soul for a soul.”

That was why Nat was gone, Clint had told him. Steve knew it was worth it, knew Nat had thought it was worth it, but-

It was too late to worry about what might have been. He kept telling everyone they needed to move on. Now it was his turn.

He walked over to the edge of the cliff. He almost couldn’t look over, but somehow he did. He didn’t know what he expected to see below, but it was just emptiness. Nothing else.

Steve reached into his utility belt for where he’d been keeping the stones, pulled out the soul stone between gloved fingers - for just a second he held onto it, looked at the shifting orange light of it and felt its power sparking in his fingers, and then he dropped it. Watched the damn thing fall through the dark and turned his back to walk away.

Instead, everything went white.

Steve woke up in water.

He automatically jolted upright with a long-familiar feeling of disorientation, reached up with his free hand to push his soaking hair away from his face, and slumped a little. He was sitting in still water, some kind of shallow lake, and- and he was holding someone’s hand in his.

Beside him, laying down like he had been, eyes closed, was Natasha, and even as he looked at her she blinked her eyes open with a soft gasp.

“Oh my God,” Steve said, feeling his breath leave him all in a rush. “Oh my  _ God.” _ He let go of her hand to work his arm under her shoulders and tug her bodily against his shoulder, wrapping his other arm around her too and hanging on for dear life. She was  _ alive, _ he could feel her, she was breathing, and then she slowly put both arms around him too and he heard a shocked little laugh, dry and so warm. He took in a deep breath, steadying and slow.

“Well, shit,” she said.

_ “Nat,” _ he answered. He didn’t know what else to say. “I’m gonna  _ kill you.” _

“And right after you got me back.” She sounded amused, but she pressed closer to him. He hadn’t meant to slip his fingers into her hair, but somehow he had. “That seems kinda counterproductive, Rogers.”

Steve stopped hugging her long enough to sit back and meet her eyes, because couldn’t quite believe it was really her. But there was warmth in her green eyes, and a couple tears, and suddenly he couldn’t help but laugh and lean in to kiss her, light. “This mission is going so much better than I thought,” he said, after a moment, and she wrinkled her nose at him, a startled look in her eyes, soft.

“That’s new,” she said.

“Is it?” Steve smiled a little, half nervous, but she touched his cheek briefly, a knowing smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. No. This wasn’t new.

“What are you  _ doing  _ here, anyway?”

“I’m supposed to be returning all the stones to where we got them. According to Banner we’ll break a lot of other realities if we don’t, so… Here I am,” Steve said, wryly. There was so much he was going to have to explain. He didn’t yet, though. He wanted to enjoy this moment, for now. Just for a while.

“Did you see the Red Skull? Looks just like a dementor.” Natasha pushed herself to her feet with a sigh, and Steve slicked his hair back and got up too, grinning.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I don’t even know what to do with that.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Natasha started quickly braiding up her hair, brows furrowing in concentration. “He doesn’t seem like a real problem anymore.”

“Not really, no,” Steve huffed.

Nat was quiet for a moment, and Steve was content just to look at her, remind himself of every little thing he’d missed about her, the color of her eyes and the look on her face when she was thinking and the smug little smile she gave him when she noticed him staring. “So how many stones do you have to put back still?” she asked, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.

“Two,” he said. “The power stone and the reality stone.” He’d saved all the space visits for last. They’d seemed like the most daunting. Now he wished he’d come to Vormir first.

“Mind if I tag along?” Natasha asked, smirking.

Steve chuckled and shook his head. “You’d better. I don’t know if I can handle all this space travel by myself. Besides, I could use a partner.”

“How about a friend?” she said, quiet, with a brightness in her eyes that promised everything else. A future he’d thought he’d lost.

“Alright, Romanoff,” he told her, taking her hand in his. It fit, just right. “I’d like that.”


End file.
